The EU still hopes North Macedonia will make the constitutional changes. However, during her visit to Skopje on Friday, its foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, didn’t rule out the possibility of other mechanisms, too, to unblock North Macedonia’s integration being taken in the event of plan A failing.
“We are focusing on plan A and trying to make the plan A work. Because when you are taking already plan B, then Plan A is out of the question. So, being very cryptical here, but what I want to say is that we still have hope that plan A works. And we are working for this. And if not, then we will move into the next phase, yes”, she stated at a joint press-conference with PM Hristijan Mickoski.
Regarding North Macedonia’s efforts to implement the reform agenda, The EU’s foreign policy chief praised them. Also, she stated that North Macedonia naturally belonged in the EU. Mickoski, on his part, stated that his country was not giving up on the EU path even though it was tired of the long blockades.
Also, he announced an opportunity for movement forward with regards to the Skopje-Sofia dialogue at a potential meeting between President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova and Bulgarian counterpart Rumen Radev on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in June in The Hague, in the presence of senior international representatives.
In the frames of her visit to Skopje, the EU’s foreign policy chief also opened the first Security and Defence Dialogue between the EU and North Macedonia with Minister of Foreign Affairs Timco Mucunski and visited the Balkan Medical Task Force Standing Organisation (BMTF SO), together with Defence Minister Vlado Misajlovski.